Press Review

“Aravot” reports that Armenian parliamentarians will demand the removal of a reference to “Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied Azerbaijani territories” from a draft resolution on Armenia to be discussed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at its winter session next week. The paper says more important is the question of why the pro-Azerbaijani wording was included in the document in the first place. It attributes that to the Armenian authorities’ Karabakh policy pursued in recent years as well as the country’s domestic political problems.

“Our country’s presidential and parliamentary elections predetermined Armenia’s position in the international arena,” “Aravot” contends. “If the elections had taken place in accordance with international standards and without flagrant violations, there would have been no such controversial wordings.”

“Azg” says that Yerevan should also brace itself for trouble emanating from the European Union which it says has drawn up a “strictly pro-Azerbaijani report” on Armenia that will be discussed at hearings on the EU’s ties with the Caucasus to be held in Brussels on Wednesday. The paper says the report calls for the return of Azerbaijanis “displaced inside their own country” as the first step towards the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. “If this report too is adopted without amendments, the second failure of the Armenian diplomacy in two weeks will become a reality.”

“Hayots Ashkhar” says that the latest attempts to bring together Armenia’s divided opposition parties are fizzling out. “The idea of consolidating the opposition is generating exactly opposite effects in the Armenian political stage and the reason for that is obvious: that idea is not engendered by our reality,” the paper says. “It was pitched from abroad.”

But as opposition leader Aram Sarkisian assures “Aravot,” his April 2004 deadline for regime change in Armenia remains in force. “In the coming days our party will come up with an official statement calling for a consolidation,” he says. “The current public is ready to take part in processes on the condition that it is confident that it will win. The public does not want to lose again. The cornerstone of that confidence is the opposition camp’s joint activities.” Sarkisian says Kocharian’s regime will be toppled whether or not his Hanrapetutyun party succeeds in creating a new opposition alliance.

“Haykakan Zhamanak” reports that the authorities and the opposition began on Tuesday a “new battle” for constitutional changes in Armenia. “The opposition has already made an explicit decision not to participate in the working group on constitutional reforms to be set up in the parliament and to draft and submit instead its own variant of the constitution,” the paper says.